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Rowden April 2017

● A time of injury is actually an ideal occasion to sit back and have a rethink about your game. It’s a chance to get off the endless roundabout of training, the daily focus on technique and perfection and the pressure and stress of competition and the emphasis on winning

Rowden April 2017

● Factors affecting reaction time include age, sex, left or right hand, peripheral vision, practice, fatigue, breathing cycles, exercise, personality, focus and intelligence. Many scientific studies in different sports have proved that men have faster reaction times than women in both the audio (ART) and visual (VRT) categories.

Rowden April 2017

● The last European woman to win a World Singles Championship was Angelica Roseanu in 1955. This was over 60 years ago and should indicate to coaches in Europe that we are not working in the right way with women’s development in our sport.

Rowden Jan 2017

The table tennis player in the early stages should work at developing conventional strokes to the best of his/her abilities. What the coach must bear in mind is that some of this process will entail unlearning habits inherited from other sports, whether this is in the areas of movement, technique, tactics or even the mental aspect.

Rowden November 2016

When changes occur in the fabric of our sport it’s not only crucial to consider changes which will occur in tactics and strategy, but also to look at the implications from a scientific viewpoint. Unfortunately the science of table tennis is an aspect to which we often do not attach enough importance.

Rowden November 2016

Speed and power are now the basic elements, spin is dramatically reduced and is no longer a prime component, rather it enhances the other elements. If you watch two men both hitting at a distance off the table, even though they are initiating topspin, the ball does not have the same forward momentum after the bounce as the celluloid ball did, instead it tends to kick up and comes through higher. As rallies are longer, consistency and accuracy are also important in the total equation: power without control is largely wasted and shot selection is vital.

Rowden May 2016

Rowden May 2016

Not only our sport of table tennis but life itself and our progress through it, is to do with change. Nothing stands still and if we try to stand still we stagnate: we stop developing and progressing and lose and/or resist the ability to adapt. Developing, improving, growing, evolving are all about moving forward and adapting to new situations and challenges. As soon as you put players into ‘style boxes’ you restrict their ability to both adapt to different opponents and situations and indeed to themselves develop to higher levels and reach full potential.

Rowden March 2016

Whether we realise it or not we are all ruled by habits built up over years or in some cases decades. Also whether we understand it or not companies and organisations also have institutional habits, in almost all cases the result of past history.